The DOI matches its Crossref record; 11 of the 11 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
“Mental health literacy”: a survey of the public's ability to recognise mental disorders and their beliefs about the effectiveness of treatment
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To assess the public's recognition of mental disorders and their beliefs about the effectiveness of various treatments ("mental health literacy"). DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey, in 1995, with structured interviews using vignettes of a person with either depression or schizophrenia. PARTICIPANTS: A representative national sample of 2031 individuals aged 18-74 years; 1010 participants were questioned about the depression vignette and 1021 about the schizophrenia vignette. RESULTS: Most of the participants recognised the presence of some sort of mental disorder: 72% for the depression vignette (correctly labelled as depression by 39%) and 84% for the schizophrenia vignette (correctly labelled by 27%). When various people were rated as likely to be helpful or harmful for the person described in the vignette for depression, general practitioners (83%) and counsellors (74%) were most often rated as helpful, with psychiatrists (51%) and psychologists (49%) less so. Corresponding data for the schizophrenia vignette were: counsellors (81%), GPs (74%), psychiatrists (71%) and psychologists (62%). Many standard psychiatric treatments (antidepressants, antipsychotics, electroconvulsive therapy, admission to a psychiatric ward) were more often rated as harmful than helpful, and some nonstandard treatments were rated highly (increased physical or social activity, relaxation and stress management, reading about people with similar problems). Vitamins and special diets were more often rated as helpful than were antidepressants and antipsychotics. CONCLUSION: If mental disorders are to be recognised early in the community and appropriate intervention sought, the level of mental health literacy needs to be raised. Further, public understanding of psychiatric treatments can be considerably improved.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“increase mental health literacy [13] and the ability to recognize, accept, deal with, and help prevent mental health issues [14]”
From Web-Based Interventions to Help Australian Adults Address Depression, Anxiety, Suicidal Ideation, and General Mental Well-being: Scoping Review (2022) · cites this paper as [14]
In the citing paper
“Improvements in mental health literacy are likely to assist young people in recognition and management of mental health and may also reduce the self-stigma associated with mental illness [84].”
From Do online mental health services improve help-seeking for young people? A systematic review (2014) · cites this paper as [84]
Citations
Cites
Kessler, R. C. (1994) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1994.03950010008002 · Cited by 12,370
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (DSM-IV)
Guzé, S. B. (1995) · American Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1176/ajp.152.8.1228 · Cited by 898
The effect of exercise on depression, anxiety and other mood states: A review
Byrne, A., & Byrne, D. G. (1993) · Journal of Psychosomatic Research · doi:10.1016/0022-3999(93)90050-p · Cited by 497
Regier, D. A., Hirschfeld, R. M. A., Goodwin, F. K., Burke, J. D., Lazar, J. B., & Judd, L. L. (1988) · American Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1176/ajp.145.11.1351 · Cited by 367
Public attitude towards psychiatric treatment
Angermeyer, M. C., & Matschinger, H. (1996) · Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica · doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.1996.tb09868.x · Cited by 228
A Treatment Outline for Depressive Disorders
(1983) · Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.3109/00048678309159997 · Cited by 99
Public attitudes to depression: a national survey
McKeon, P., & Carrick, S. (1991) · Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1017/s0790966700015020 · Cited by 95
Treatment Outlines for the Management of Schizophrenia
Andrews, G. (1984) · Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.3109/00048678409161034 · Cited by 64
Üstün, T. B., Goldberg, D., Cooper, J. E., Simon, G. E., & Sartorius, N. (1995) · PubMed Central · Cited by 53
The scar that is more than skin deep: the stigma of depression.
Sims, A. (1993) · PubMed · Cited by 45
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Nutbeam D, 1993, Goals and targets for Australia's health in the year 2000 and beyond
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1995, Population survey monitor, August 1995 (No. 4103.0)
- World Health Organization, 1993, The ICD‐10 classification of mental and behavioural disorders. Diagnostic criteria for research
- Depression Guideline Panel, 1993, Depression in primary care: Volume 2. Treatment of major depression. Clinical practice guideline, number 5
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 1,001–1,008 of 1,008
Swami, V., & Knowles, V. (2013) · International Journal of Culture and Mental Health · doi:10.1080/17542863.2013.769611 · Cited by 15
A Randomized Trial of Brief Online Interventions to Facilitate Treatment Seeking for Social Anxiety.
Tobias, M. R., Landy, L. N., Levin, M. E., & Arch, J. J. (2022) · Behavior Modification · doi:10.1177/01454455211040051 · Cited by 10
“We highlight three key facets underlying SAD’s particularly low rates of help-seeking, with the first two reflecting issues of mental health literacy (MHL; Jorm et al., 1997).”
BackgroundSkaczkowski, G., van der Kruk, S., Loxton, S., Hughes-Barton, D., Howell, C., Turnbull, D., Jensen, N., Smout, M., & Gunn, K. (2022) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/31018 · Cited by 9
“Across the globe, web-based interventions have been shown to effectively reduce the severity of symptoms of depression [10], anxiety [11], and social anxiety [12] and increase mental health literacy [13] and the ability to recognize, accept, deal with, and help prevent mental health issues [14].”
BackgroundHow should Alcohol Dependence be Treated? The Public View
de Toledo Piza Peluso, E., & Blay, S. L. (2008) · Alcohol and Alcoholism · doi:10.1093/alcalc/agn054 · Cited by 5
THE DETERMINANTS OF MENTAL HEALTH LITERACY AMONG YOUNG ADOLESCENTS IN SOUTH OF JORDAN
Alsaraireh, F., Al-Oran, H., Althnaibat, H., & Leimoon, H. (2023) · ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.54615/2231-7805.47295 · Cited by 3
Kapeli, S. A., McLean‐Orsborn, S., Singh, I., Chandra, L., & Tone‐Graham, P. V. (2025) · Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand · doi:10.1080/03036758.2025.2525159 · Cited by 2
Chandra, L. A., McLean-Orsborn, S., Tone-Graham, P. V., & Kapeli, S. A. (2026) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph23030291
Mental health literacy among residents in Shanghai.
(2013) · PubMed Central · doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-0829.2013.04.004 · Cited by 66
Metadata
- Authors
- Jorm, A. F., Korten, A. E., Jacomb, P. A., Christensen, H., Rodgers, B., & Pollitt, P.
- Affiliations
- Australian National University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Jorm, Anthony F
- Venue
- Medical Journal of Australia
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1997-02
- Volume
- 166
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 182-186
- ISSN
- 0025-729X (ISSN-L)
- 1326-5377
- OpenAlex
- W1206579674
- Cited by
- 2,585
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 197 · 2025: 220 · 2024: 223 · 2023: 235 · 2022: 193 · 2021: 176 · 2020: 152 · 2019: 130 · 2018: 98 · 2017: 103 · 2016: 86 · 2015: 80 · 2014: 79 · 2013: 82 · 2012: 47
- FWCI
- 29.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- The Medical Journal of Australia (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mental Health and Patient Involvement
- Keywords
- mental health literacy, depression, schizophrenia, treatment effectiveness, help-seeking, general practitioners, counselors, psychiatrists, antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs, electroconvulsive therapy, community mental health
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Attitude to Health, Australia, Cross-Sectional Studies, Depressive Disorder, Female, Health Services Needs and Demand, Humans, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Male, Middle Aged, Prognosis, Surveys and Questionnaires, Schizophrenia, Treatment Outcome
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
